Adapting image-based RL policies via predicted rewards

Weiyao Wang, Xinyuan Fang, Gregory Hager
Proceedings of the 6th Annual Learning for Dynamics & Control Conference, PMLR 242:324-336, 2024.

Abstract

Image-based reinforcement learning (RL) faces significant challenges in generalization when the visual environment undergoes substantial changes between training and deployment. Under such circumstances, learned policies may not perform well leading to degraded results. Previous approaches to this problem have largely focused on broadening the training observation distribution, employing techniques like data augmentation and domain randomization. However, given the sequential nature of the RL decision-making problem, it is often the case that residual errors are propagated by the learned policy model and accumulate throughout the trajectory, resulting in highly degraded performance. In this paper, we leverage the observation that predicted rewards under domain shift, even though imperfect, can still be a useful signal to guide fine-tuning. We exploit this property to fine-tune a policy using reward prediction in the target domain. We have found that, even under significant domain shift, the predicted reward can still provide meaningful signal and fine-tuning substantially improves the original policy. Our approach, termed Predicted Reward Fine-tuning (PRFT), improves performance across diverse tasks in both simulated benchmarks and real-world experiments. More information is available at project web page: https://sites.google.com/view/prft.

Cite this Paper

BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v242-wang24a, title = {Adapting Image-based RL Policies via Predicted Rewards}, author = {Wang, Weiyao and Fang, Xinyuan and Hager, Gregory}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 6th Annual Learning for Dynamics & Control Conference}, pages = {324--336}, year = {2024}, editor = {Abate, Alessandro and Cannon, Mark and Margellos, Kostas and Papachristodoulou, Antonis}, volume = {242}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, month = {15--17 Jul}, publisher = {PMLR}, pdf = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v242/wang24a/wang24a.pdf}, url = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v242/wang24a.html}, abstract = {Image-based reinforcement learning (RL) faces significant challenges in generalization when the visual environment undergoes substantial changes between training and deployment. Under such circumstances, learned policies may not perform well leading to degraded results. Previous approaches to this problem have largely focused on broadening the training observation distribution, employing techniques like data augmentation and domain randomization. However, given the sequential nature of the RL decision-making problem, it is often the case that residual errors are propagated by the learned policy model and accumulate throughout the trajectory, resulting in highly degraded performance. In this paper, we leverage the observation that predicted rewards under domain shift, even though imperfect, can still be a useful signal to guide fine-tuning. We exploit this property to fine-tune a policy using reward prediction in the target domain. We have found that, even under significant domain shift, the predicted reward can still provide meaningful signal and fine-tuning substantially improves the original policy. Our approach, termed Predicted Reward Fine-tuning (PRFT), improves performance across diverse tasks in both simulated benchmarks and real-world experiments. More information is available at project web page: https://sites.google.com/view/prft.} }
Endnote
%0 Conference Paper %T Adapting image-based RL policies via predicted rewards %A Weiyao Wang %A Xinyuan Fang %A Gregory Hager %B Proceedings of the 6th Annual Learning for Dynamics & Control Conference %C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research %D 2024 %E Alessandro Abate %E Mark Cannon %E Kostas Margellos %E Antonis Papachristodoulou %F pmlr-v242-wang24a %I PMLR %P 324--336 %U https://proceedings.mlr.press/v242/wang24a.html %V 242 %X Image-based reinforcement learning (RL) faces significant challenges in generalization when the visual environment undergoes substantial changes between training and deployment. Under such circumstances, learned policies may not perform well leading to degraded results. Previous approaches to this problem have largely focused on broadening the training observation distribution, employing techniques like data augmentation and domain randomization. However, given the sequential nature of the RL decision-making problem, it is often the case that residual errors are propagated by the learned policy model and accumulate throughout the trajectory, resulting in highly degraded performance. In this paper, we leverage the observation that predicted rewards under domain shift, even though imperfect, can still be a useful signal to guide fine-tuning. We exploit this property to fine-tune a policy using reward prediction in the target domain. We have found that, even under significant domain shift, the predicted reward can still provide meaningful signal and fine-tuning substantially improves the original policy. Our approach, termed Predicted Reward Fine-tuning (PRFT), improves performance across diverse tasks in both simulated benchmarks and real-world experiments. More information is available at project web page: https://sites.google.com/view/prft.
APA
Wang, W., Fang, X. & Hager, G.. (2024). Adapting image-based RL policies via predicted rewards. Proceedings of the 6th Annual Learning for Dynamics & Control Conference, in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 242:324-336 Available from https://proceedings.mlr.press/v242/wang24a.html.

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